As an ingredient, eggs are not only delicious and nutritionally valuable, but also reasonably priced. Therefore, it has become a regular customer at the table of ordinary people. However, in the Qing Dynasty, this egg was something that even the emperor was too expensive.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, one morning in the dynasty, Qianlong and the ministers chatted idly, inadvertently chatting about what the ministers ate in the morning.
One of the ministers told Qianlong that his family's economy was relatively poor, and he ate a few eggs in the morning. Who knows, after Qianlong heard this, he was greatly shocked and said: "Ai Qing Mo wants to laugh, this one egg costs 10 taels of silver, you ate a few eggs for breakfast, you don't dare to eat like you, your family is not poor at all." ”
After this minister listened, he said in his heart, how can you buy an egg for 10 taels of silver? It must have been the group of people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs who had caused the ghost, and the people involved in it must not be less, and they did not have the strength or the idea to go through this muddy water, so they had to smile and retreat to the side and no longer speak. During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, the price of an egg purchased in the court reached a staggering 30 taels.
The money for an egg in the palace is unknown to the people how many old hens can be bought. Coincidentally, the Guangxu Emperor also liked to eat eggs, but in the face of the price of eggs, it was really difficult. At this time, the situation was turbulent, internal and external troubles, and there was a shortage of money everywhere, and in the face of such a delicious taste, the Guangxu Emperor had no choice but to suppress the worms in his stomach. And a mere egg has become a sky-high ingredient that the king of a country cannot afford to eat.
One day, the Guangxu Emperor chatted with his teacher Weng Tonggong, perhaps a ghost in his stomach, and the two somehow talked about eggs. The Guangxu Emperor said, "Elder Weng, this egg is really a first-class delicacy in the world, but this price is really a bit expensive." ”
Weng Tonggong, who was scheming and calculating, immediately guessed that it was the people in the palace who deceived the emperor and pumped oil and water behind his back. However, not only did he not make a sound, but he also said quietly: "Yes, yes, the old minister also eats once a year, and the family is willing to eat once until the New Year." ”
In the Qing Dynasty, there are many historical records about the price of eggs, and the Daoguang Emperor and the Xianfeng Emperor once conducted a large-scale investigation because of this matter, trying to find out the problem behind it, but Empress Dowager Cixi ignored it. It is really ridiculous to say that the king of a country in the hall of heaven and heaven can't handle this little egg. The fact is that the food in the palace is purchased by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while the eggs sold outside are only 3 or 4 copper plates, but the Internal Affairs Office's accounting doubles the price.
Later, the emperor felt that this was always not the way to go, so he supplemented and modified the "Decree of Making Sound and Color Goods", and even the Daoguang Emperor also practiced it, in addition to the dragon robe, "it is not easy to dress the three huans", that is to say, only change clothes once a month, each meal is only four dishes and a soup, and often send eunuchs out of the palace to buy burnt cakes, and at dinner with the empress to eat this. It is also stipulated that under the six products, no satin shall be worn, and only cloth and cloth boots shall be clothed. Ten years after Daoguang, it was reported that General Shengjing often performed banquets at home, and the Daoguang Emperor immediately removed him from his post.
This matter may be a little funny to say now, but it is worth our deep consideration. For this matter, as a posterity, we cannot laugh it off, and we must think about the historical lessons behind this historical event.
As we all know, the Ministry of Internal Affairs was a unique organ of the Qing Dynasty, with as many as three thousand officials, more than ten times more than the number of households with the most complicated affairs, and it can be said that it is the largest organ in the Qing Dynasty.
Its full name is the General Administration of Internal Affairs, Yamen, which is the management of internal affairs, specializing in the private affairs of the emperor and the harem, and was established in the early years of Shunzhi after the Entry of the Qing Dynasty. Because of the emperor's trust and dependence on the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the power of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was getting more and more powerful, and its power was not supervised, so corruption became a common practice and corruption was rampant, which could be regarded as the most corrupt institution in the ancient yamen.
However, the Qing Dynasty's egg prices were not uncommon because the Qing Dynasty's Ministry of Internal Affairs had never had a rigid normative system, let alone a related financial system. Because the people of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were often at the emperor's side and had relatively close relations with the emperor, they had always been the object of manchu civil and military cooperation, so administrative supervision was difficult to effective.
Man belongs to a kind of animal, and animal nature is always the nature of man in his bones. Therefore, the crux of the matter is that animalism is freed from more and less. But rationality is a fundamental trait that distinguishes human beings from other animals, and they know how to avoid things that are bad for them. However, the use of moral constraints and ideological indoctrination to improve human nature, although it has its fundamental significance and ultimate value, does not have a realistic and instrumental restrictive function, which is not only inefficient, but also unreliable.
Therefore, only the establishment and improvement of the system is the most fundamental and lowest cost choice for building a modern national governance system.
However, the system is not a cage for human beings, and we must treat the problem of the system with the right attitude. On the one hand, the system has a binding role, but on the other hand, it also has a certain guiding role. The purpose of formulating the system is to make people's daily behavior more in line with ethics and laws and regulations, and ultimately, to achieve the harmonious development of society. For example, in order to prevent their poultry from running into the vegetable field to steal food, the most important thing for farmers is to tighten the fence.
In other words, the reason why the Zhao and Song dynasties (Northern Song and Southern Song) were able to exist for more than 300 years was that the rulers at that time created a lot of original systems and some related measures. To take a clear example, the imperial examination system in the Zhao and Song dynasties was almost "absolutely fair", making the phenomenon of nepotism very rare.
In doing so, it not only ensures the mobility of social classes, but also ensures the overall quality level of officials.
It can be said that the various systems that have emerged in history are all part of human civilization. The emergence of these systems not only maintains the overall order of human society, but also constrains the evil side of human nature, forming a conventional moral and ethical concept.
A good system is not trying to change human nature, but to recognize the reality of human nature, conform to the laws of human nature, and induce people to overcome their own animal nature through scientific design, and actively choose to do good deeds and be good people.
Resources:
【Draft History of the Qing Dynasty", "Notes on the South Pavilion", "Spring Ice Room Wild Ride"】